They are the terrorist threat Stephen Harper never warned us about.
For while he spent almost a decade branding everyone from refugees, to environmentalists, to scientists and humanitarian groups, as potential terrorists and threats to Canada's national security.
He completely ignored some of the most dangerous people in Canada...
The right-wing extremist groups that infest this country.
Canada’s right-wing extremist movement is a motley crew of white supremacists, anti-government “sovereignists” and pro-militia crusaders who, despite being disorganized and prone to booze-fuelled in-fighting, are “more extensive and more active” than most people think, says a new study.
“They’re very prevalent in a number of communities. They’re very unpredictable. You don’t know when they’re going to lash out,” said Barbara Perry, the lead author, a criminology professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
While some members have engaged in random acts of violence, others have carried out targeted attacks on Muslims, Jews, people of colour, aboriginals and LGBTQ people.
Who are now not only a clear and present danger, but are also flooding the internet with their diseased propaganda...
One place where right-wing extremists find support is online. Sub-forums of the white supremacist website, Stormfront.org, are among the most popular, the researchers found. Topics of recent discussion threads included “Brown people are still invading” and “I am sorry but only white people are Canadian.”
“One officer voiced his concern about websites that urged its audience to ‘kill the Aboriginals, kill the Jews, kill the blacks, kill the gays,’” the researchers wrote.
But then why should we be surprised when a young Harper is alleged to have hired right-wing extremists to provide security at early Reform Party rallies?
Why should we be surprised when the behaviour of him and his Cons during the recent election campaign inflamed hatred against Muslims and refugees?
In a manner that should never be forgotten or forgiven.
And why should we be surprised when grotesque bullies like Ezra Levant are allowed to get away with whipping up hatred for money?
And pandering to dangerous extremists like the ones who leave comments on his hate mongering site...
And all I can say is that after the number of death threats that Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley have received.
And considering what has been happening in the United States...
Where the nutbars are out of control, and threatening a civil war.
The police need to crackdown on the scummy right-wing extremists in this country before they cause some kind of violent tragedy.
Our hate laws need to be strengthened.
And if there was any justice, for tolerating hatred, or helping to spreading it like a disease.
Cons like Harper and Levant should both have been caged long ago....
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20 comments:
I follow David Neiwert's blog (http://http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/) all the time. He does an amazing job keeping track of the right-wing extremists and hate groups that are in the US, and their connections to much of the US Republican Party.
At least Ezra just got his ass kicked by a Roma family.
What was that? I seemed to have missed it.
His rant was clearly a hate crime as well as totally irrational. I really think he is clinically insane or so consumed by hate against almost everyone that he might as well be. Note I am not a clinical psychologist nor psychologist.
I also caught his interview with the psychiatrist who was the "expert" witness against Omar Khadr in the Guantanamo kangaroo court. I don't know which (not "who" as that would imply they are humans) was more despicable, Levant or Michael Welner.
I had read Welner's testimony at the animal show and he, clearly, knew absolutely nothing about Islam and a bit of googling pointed out that he seems to have no actually qualifications.
He seemed to base most of his opinions about Islam on an article in a right wing racist European magazine that summarized a book by a Danish psychologist who worked in a prison. Welner did say that he had not read the book since it had not been translated and he did not read Danish. This is plainly unethical but the googling did point out that as a hired gun he was a loyal hired gun.
Levant was just revelling in hearing anti-Islamic statements no matter how objectionable and ridiculous. The disgusting egging on the unethical. Pah!
Warren Kinsalla was writing about the dangers of the extreme right back in 1992. Pesumably the RCMP was too busy watching David Suzuki and Ed Broadbent to be able to spare any of their attention to right-wing crazies.
ah, the right wing extremist...........
sad what they say on line, but I do suspect it is more hot air than actual ability to carry out their threats. On the other hand Harper and his Con government used to have the RCMP sent to the homes of people taking pictures of things Kinder Morgan didn't want them taking pictures of, and they were on public property.
It might be in order to have the RCMP or local police forces drop by on some of these "nutbars' and explain the law.
We have a fine line here. Do we make them "heros" in their own minds by charging them criminally or do we ignore their rantings and ravings. To date we have been lucky. My suggestion is we simply monitor some of the more extreme extremists and leave it at that.
I would suggest the difference the RCMP watching "Dave Suzuki and Ed Broadbent" is that those 2 gentlemen, were impacting the profit line of corporations. The right wing idiots are simply threatening to kill people, which doesn't impact the "bottom line".
What I find peculiar about the neo-right's antics last few years is the blatant, seemingly intentional resort to absurdity, of which hypocrisy is tributary. Much of it appears remote from racist hatred, like Christy's preposterous LNG election campaign pean which seemed to intentionally emphasize the preposterousness of her serially inflated whoppers---as if she (or, more likely, her handlers) was afraid we'd miss it. Saw it again with Mount Polley where mine minister Bill Bennett looked to be flaunting the absurdity of his "Disaster? What Disaster?" response while standing in front of the actual tailings-pond breach which released one of the biggest mining catastrophes in BC history. Christy, during one of her rare sightings, compounded the absurdity, similarly on-site, by proclaiming that she stood "shoulder-to-shoulder" with her First Nations "sisters" in dealing with the shock of the situation. Wasn't much later she shitcanned the BC Treaty
Process without much explanation, nor any definite plans to reform it, replace it or restart it.
I'm not quite sure yet if a relationship exists, but my recent introduction to a new American pop music genre called "country rap" sure tied hypocrisy and absurdity together for me: bunch a fat, white rednecks talk-singin in good-ole-boy twang 'bout "I'm how I am, ain't nobody gonna take it away from me..." all with ridiculous aping of rap-culture crotch-grabbing, gangsta hand-signs, doo-rags under stetsons, bunch of Ellie-May chicks young enough to be their daughters (even granddaughters) haulin down brews in their high, cut-off jeans and low-cut checkered shirts---you know, tied in a knot under heaving bosoms---the whole bit. And not a black face to be seen in the bass-boosted din, as menacing as a hip-hop lynch mob.
So what's up with that? Ezra, a Jew, acting like a Nazi---and making sure you don't miss the fact---Harper acting like a Residential School apologist while scheming a smear campaign in Attawapiskat--- Christy's so-called "Families First" policy in the province with the worst child-poverty rate in Canada fifteen years running---hypocritical, absurd, no doubt, but what's up with the blatancy of it?
I've come down so far to think it might have to do either with blunting serious criticism (which could plausibly be considered inadequate to absurdity), or maybe a bravado demonstration, that they're powerful enough to afford this freakish frivolity---sort of a threat or warning by way of flaunting it.
I dunno; maybe it's simply that they got nothing else in the ethical cogency sense. I mean, look at the Republican party these days, and now the Canadian neo-right (of which Christy's BC Liberals might be the last bastion north of the 49th): maybe it's true the neo-right have had their ride on the pendulum, swinging back now because their particular ethos has been shown up as XL-size charlatanism.
The disturbing thing is, though, if they can't persuade by reason or reasonable conduct, they might resort to force. But then, I suppose, they'd call that "democracy".
I was pleased to learn that in 2 recent BC by-elections, NDP candidates were elected.
You can keep informed of "Christy Crunch's" latest tactics by adding this link to your favourites:
http://thetyee.ca/Topic/BC-Politics/
--F.Y.I.-- This morning on The Current Anna Maria Tremonte is doing a segment on the rise of the radical right.
hi CVSoG...thanks for the link I'll check it out. We also have a very good blog on Progressive Bloggers, Anti-Racist Canada http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.ca It knows all the neo-nazi scum and denounces and mocks the mercilessly...
hi rumleyfips...Levant was certainly embarrassed by the Roma affair. But if I recall he got away with just a half assed apology. When for writing what he did about that oppressed people he should have been charged with a hate crime. For I could see no difference between what the Nazis said about the Roma before they murdered so many, and what Levant wrote about them....
hi jrkrideau...Levant used Weiner as the central character in his disgusting book on Khadr. And you're right I don't think Weiner ever spoke to Khadr just collected material other had gathered and shaped it into some weird theory or the sum of his preconceptions. As we have seen since Omar is not only not a monster, he's quite an impressive young Canadian...
hi e.a.f...many of them are indeed basement warriors, but don't forget the FBI considers them the biggest threat in the U.S. so we need to take them seriously here. For they can be violent, they are armed, and the could cause a tragedy....
hi Scotty...you raise a lot of interesting questions, but I would boil it down to this one:
Will the decaying right go quietly, and give way to a more progressive era that can tackle the threats facing the planet. Or will we have fascism? Because it will be one or the other...
hi Omar...thanks for that. We can't expose or denounce those hate mongers enough. I knew they were out there, but I avoid their sites, so I hadn't realized what a problem they're becoming. And in a time of economic recession, and with the U.S. turned into a mad house, I fear what could happen here. The police need cot go after those thugs and throw the book at them before they get out of control, and do something awful...
Part of their game is pushing the boundary from the safety of moms basement. We need to be Protective of those boundaries we place on our civil society. Police warnings, charges, whatever it takes. We need to push back, then carry on like it never happened (meaning not giving them more attention then is needed), all while keeping an eye on them. Hoping this will start to happen. As there have not been any charges, seems like there is no real plan on this matter.
TS
No Simon, Maclean's reported that Welner had a 7 hour interview over two days with the poor sod
freeomar has the transcript that Maclean's either received or the transcript that they recieved.
http://freeomar.ca/2012/09/28/the-khadr-welner-tapes-june-15-16-2010/ .
Welner, IIRC, did have access to a lot of other matterials before the interview
In trying to find Welner's testimony I hit a nice source about Welner's expertise
"It soon became evident that, in addition to his psychiatric expertise, Welner fancied himself an expert on radical Islam, defining such adherents as not wanting to live in a country that doesn’t follow Sharia law. On cross-examination, the defense elicited that this was the first case in which Welner had testified on such matters. It didn’t help that the primary resource Welner used was a Danish study of 250 youthful Muslim inmates. Rather than relying on the study itself (as it was written in Danish), Welner’s reliance was based on a phone conversation with the author, purportedly a 33-year-old doctor whose credentials Welner did not verify."
http://www.nimjblog.org/2010/10/dr-welners-testimony.html
I must have forgotten thatapparently he had bit more than just the skin-head magazine article. Still totally unethical behaviour but he was getting $400 an hour.
Turned out it was an expose on the Koch brothers. But I suppose when you're talking right wing radicals they are at the very top of the political shite heap.
hi TS...Yes many of those right-wing extremists are basement dwellers, with one hand on the keyboard, and the other hand you know where. But they should not be underestimated, because they are influenced by the crazies south of the border, they are armed, they hate people like Trudeau and Notley with a passion that defies reason. And if they are not brought under control they will cause a tragedy...
if the FBI considers them dangerous, I'm convinced then they aren't. They were never the brightest bunch in American law enforcement. They haven't changed much since the days of J. Edgar Hoover and their assault on anyone they didn't like.
The thing with basement warriors is, they seldom come out of the basement.
Timothy Mcveigh didn't come out of the basement much, but when he did, 168 people died and certain machinations were irrevocably set in motion.
The neo-right's biggest problem right now is the generally geriatric condition of its base which attrits fairly quickly without replacement. I see it trying to recruit younger proselytes, but it doesn't look like enough to cover this rate of attrition. What about the middle-class? What's the neo-right, the "1%", got to proselytize them with anymore? In case it hasn't noticed, the middle-class is starting to hurt due to stagnant wages, rising cost-of-living, and huge, trans-generational debt levels. Will this most-self-deluded class keep believing the gold ring is within grasp or that it's unserviceable debt isn't really lapping at their ears?
Thus, lacking cannon-fodder defence, the neo-right seems left with only the option of defence. So far evasion has worked well---as in off-shore accounts, low-wage operations in low-wage countries, and tax and regulations suppression (for themselves) in some first-world nations. As long as these bullshit, so-called "trade deals" spike national-democratic sovereignty, things will carry on the way they've been, but the minute these freebies are shut off, options for the neo-right will be reduced to only a few, probably violent, tactics---by that time it won't do to call them "strategies".
Isn't Canada still considering whether to sign onto the TPP? I think that'd be the worst thing to do. Christy said we'd be "shut out" of business with these supposed "trading nations"; but---ignoring for the moment that these really aren't countries signing on, but the government proxies of stateless corporatist profiteers---Christy is just being her usual, preposterous self.
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